Opening statements paint different pictures in trial

Thursday

May 29, 2014 at 3:15 AMMay 29, 2014 at 8:05 PM

By Kimberley Haaskhaas@fosters.com

DOVER — During their graphic and impassioned opening statements Wednesday morning, Assistant Attorney General Peter Hinckley and public defender Joachim Barth laid their foundations for the stories they want jurors in the Seth Mazzaglia murder trial to believe.

Hinckley described 19-year-old Elizabeth “Lizzi” Marriott's death on Oct. 9, 2012 as a “deliberate, purposeful and cold-blooded murder” perpetrated by Mazzaglia, a bondage, domination and sadomasochism “master” who forced his live-in girlfriend, Kathryn “Kat” McDonough, to be his “submissive slave.”

Hinckley told the jury that Mazzaglia, 31, of 1 Mill St., Apt. 341, in Dover, ordered McDonough to find him another woman that he could sexually exploit just six weeks before Marriott, a transfer student at the University of New Hampshire, was lured to his apartment where she was allegedly raped and murdered.

In an Aug. 25, 2012, text message which was deleted from Mazzaglia's phone but saved by his cellular carrier, Mazzaglia sent McDonough a chilling description of what her punishment should be for going to theater camp.

“​The second price is this, you chose a friend, any of them will do,” Mazzaglia wrote. “I think it would be fitting if the first thing you saw is if I pleasured one of your friends until they died of orgasms and only then do I turn my brutal attention toward you.”

Hinckley characterized McDonough as a person who Mazzaglia started to groom at age 17. At 19, McDonough obeyed Mazzaglia's orders without objection and sought out a friendship with Marriott, a “friendly, goofy, personable and trusting” marine biology student who she knew from working at Target in Greenland.

On the night Marriott died, Hinckley said Mazzaglia was planning to have BDSM sex with McDonough in front of another couple later on in the evening. When those plans fell through, he turned his attention on Marriott, who he had met once before.

Hinckley said soon into Marriott's visit to the apartment, she agreed to play a game of strip poker with the couple, believing that they were in a committed relationship. Everything seemed to be going well for Mazzaglia, Hinckley said, until Marriott, who was in a committed relationship herself, said she would not kiss McDonough or watch Mazzaglia and McDonough have sex in front of her.

That is when Mazzaglia put on a pair of gloves and took out a rope that he and McDonough used during BDSM asphyxiation practices. Mazzaglia put the rope around Marriott's neck while she was sitting on the living room couch, Hinckley said.

“The defendant choked her from behind for minutes until she could no longer say no to him,” Hinckley told the jury. “No longer able to say no to him, he raped her.”

Hinckley said Mazzaglia got on top of Marriott and pushed her underwear aside, forcing himself upon her while muttering insults.

“He violated her limp body until he ejaculated and then he washed up,” Hinckley said.

Hinckley said McDonough did nothing to stop Mazzaglia from brutally attacking and killing Marriott with the rope.

“No one rejected him. Not in his house. Not in front of his woman,” Hinckley told the jury during the beginning of his opening statements. “He attacked, he raped, and he murdered Lizzi and he had absolutely no mercy during it or remorse afterward, when he was done with his victim.”

Hinckley told the jurors that Mazzaglia and McDonough dumped Marriott's body into the Atlantic Ocean at Peirce Island in Portsmouth “where she never has, and never will be, found.”

Since the killing, Hinckley said, Mazzaglia has been telling stories and framing others for the crime.

“He has been literally trying to get away with murder,” Hinckley said.

Public defender Joachim Barth told the jury a very different story.

Barth said it was McDonough who actually killed Elizabeth “Lizzi” Marriott during breath play using restraints, including a harness that restricted arm movement and a choker Marriott agreed to put on.

Barth explained McDonough positioned herself over Marriott's face and intentionally restricted oxygen to her brain for sexual arousal. During the course of that breath play, Barth argued that Marriott was suffocated.

Barth described McDonough as a free woman who was not controlled by Mazzaglia. He said it was McDonough who drove the bondage, domination and sadomasochism role play in their lives, leaving notes for Mazzaglia describing what she wanted. Barth said McDonough described herself as a “switch,” someone who could play either dominant or submissive roles, but that she openly wanted to perfect her role as a dominatrix, even terming her form of breath play “Queening.”

Barth claimed it was McDonough who was obsessed with bringing a woman into her relationship with Mazzaglia. He told the jurors that McDonough continued to look for a woman to be in a relationship with after Mazzaglia was arrested and placed in jail.

Barth also indicated that McDonough suffered from mental illness.

“She had five voices in her head,” Barth told the jury.

McDonough claimed she lost bodily control to one of those voices, Charlotte, Barth said.

Barth said it was McDonough who brought out her box of restraints on the night Marriott was killed. She convinced Marriott to put the harness on. When breath play went “terribly wrong,” Mazzaglia went along with McDonough's plans to dispose of the evidence, including Marriott's body.

“What happened next was sheer panic,” Barth said, referring to the actions Mazzaglia took with Marriott's corpse after her death.

The prosecution called their first witness, Detective Sean Mask of the Dover Police Department, Wednesday afternoon. Mask testified about cellular phone records and the Aug. 25 text message Mazzaglia allegedly sent McDonough.

The trial, which is expected to last two to three weeks, will resume this morning at Strafford County Superior Court.

Because of the graphic nature of this case, Sexual Assault Support Services in Rochester is reminding sex assault survivors of their 24-hour confidential hot line with trained advocates who are able to provide support for those affected by media coverage of this trial. Their phone number is 1-888-747-7070.

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